The Taming of the Crew
by Lyricoloratura
Summary: Five times Captain Kirk went all Shakespeare on his friends, and one time when they went all Shakespeare back on him.


**A/N: ** I get a big kick out of the "Five times.. and one time" prompt – and this just came to mind. It is, obviously, just a quickie.

* * *

_**Five times Jim went all Shakespeare on his friends...**_

It had been a long, peaceful stretch for the _Enterprise, _with no alien attacks, diplomatic crises, or unexplained plagues. To most people, this would be considered a _good_ thing. However, Captain James T. Kirk was not "most people"... and he was getting bored.

Therefore, he decided to, as he put it, "add a little culture" to the weekly game night get-togethers that he and his bridge crew enjoyed as their "team-building time" each week.

Jim's idea of "a little culture" was to go through his copy of "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare," and bring in a quote each week that – in his opinion – applied to one of his crew members. He then had the crew member in question find the quote and read it aloud to everyone else. It can be imagined that the captain enjoyed these moments considerably more than the crew...

**1) Lieutenant Uhura:** This one was fairly easy for Captain Kirk, as Nyota had been flipping him some _serious_ attitude the entire week. Therefore, she was assigned not one, but _two_ quotes:

_Much Ado About Nothing_ (I, i, 118) --"What, my dear Lady Disdain! Are you yet living?"

_King Richard III_, (I, ii, 172) – "Teach not thy lip such scorn, for it was made For kissing, lady, not for such contempt."

(Lieutenant Commander Scott approved loudly of the second selection – and was smacked soundly over the head with Lt. Uhura's datapad immediately thereafter.)

**2) Lieutenant Sulu & Ensign Chekov:** Again, this quote proved not to be a stretch for the intrepid captain. The relationship between Sulu and Chekov was the Enterprise's worst-kept secret – and it was looking to Captain Kirk as though the two lovebirds had been in, well, a bit of a spat over the past few days. So they got to share...

_A Midsummer Night's Dream _(I, i, 132–134)

"Ay me! for aught that I could ever read,  
Could ever hear by tale or history,  
The course of true love never did run smooth..."

(Sulu, definitely an actor at heart, tried hard not to look as though he were enjoying his moment in the dramatic limelight. Chekov, however, turned the color of a tomato and mumbled inaudibly. So Kirk made him repeat it.)

**3) Dr. McCoy:** Kirk had been on the receiving end of one too many of the good doctor's hyposprays this week.

_Macbeth _(V, iii, 47)

"Throw physic to the dogs, I'll none of it."

(Dr. McCoy resolved to find at least two more vaccines that Jim would urgently require in the next few days.)

**4. Commander Spock: ** Admittedly, his first officer presented rather a challenge to Captain Kirk; first, it wasn't particularly easy to poke fun at him in, well, really any way at all, much less in a Shakespearean way. Additionally, Kirk had... his own reasons for not wanting to annoy Spock. The best Jim could come up with was to make a dig at his Vulcan disdain for human philosophical endeavors:

_Hamlet _(I, v, 166–167)

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,  
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

("Honestly, Captain," was Spock's response as they walked back to their quarters. "Was that the most appropriate quotation you could find in the course of your research? That was – what is Ensign Chekov's word? Ah, yes – lame. It was lame, Jim.")

**5. Lieutenant Commander Scott: ** Scotty had really been annoying Jim recently, through no fault of his own. He'd been attracting an enthusiastic crowd in the mess hall with his stories of his time on Delta Vega – as well as quite a few "edge-of-your-seat" anecdotes about times when his quick thinking had saved the _Enterprise_. Unfortunately for the captain, the tales of heroism were unconditionally true – Scotty really was every bit as cool as the stories made him out to be – but, dammit, _Jim _was used to being the center of the crew's attention, and he didn't care for this at all, thanks.

When Scotty's turn came up, he had:

_Macbeth _(V, v, 24–28)

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,  
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,  
And then is heard no more. It is a tale  
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,  
Signifying nothing.

("Well," he observed later to Lieutenant Uhura, "a' least he had me quotin' a Scotsman...")

**...And the one time his friends went all Shakespeare back on him:**

Since Captain Kirk had managed to include each member of his bridge crew in his pithy and pertinent cultural observations, he thought it was only fair to invite them to find an appropriate Shakespearean quote that applied to their valiant (and ever-so-cultured) commanding officer.

Jim was, however, surprised that when his own "Shakespeare Night" arrived, each of his six friends had managed to come up with the identical quote for him. Intrigued, he started looking through the play they'd indicated for some passage that had to do with honor, bravery, or some other of his amazing attributes...

_Much Ado About Nothing, _(IV, ii, 76-78)

"But masters, remember that I am an ass: though it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass."

(Kirk's volume of Shakespeare was retired permanently after that.)


End file.
